Chapter 2. Observing economic rights 2.3. Right to land 61 Within the scope of parliamentary oversight over the observance of constitutional rights of citizens in the field of land in the context of decentralization, the Commissioner monitored 17 sites. In particular, monitoring visits were made to the city, settlement councils and territorial departments of the State Geocadastre in Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Poltava, Chernihiv oblasts. Systemic violations of land rights of citizens During the monitoring visits, a number of systemic irregularities were identified that related to: • violation of the legal requirements by the local self-government bodies regarding holding sessions of councils on the allocation of land plots and issuance of permits in the field of economic activity - at least once a month; • failure to decide on granting a permit or to provide reasoned refusal during the consideration by the sessions of city councils of draft decisions on granting citizens the permits to develop a land management plan for acquiring land plots into ownership (members of local councils abstent from voting instead of voting “for” or “against” such decisions); • requirements of the territorial departments of the State Geocadastre regarding the endorsement of retrieving information from the cartographic documents by the local self-government bodies; • refusal in permits for the development of a land management plan for acquiring a land plot into ownership because of granting the permit for the same land plot to another citizen of because of granting the permit for another land plot to the same citizen. The monitoring revealed an unprecedented case of violation of citizens’ land rights. Example Brusyliv village council by its decision introduced a moratorium on decision-making – in particular, on granting citizens the permits to develop land management plans for acquiring land plots into ownership – until the stock-taking of land plots that were transferred to the municipal property of the village council are. The introduction of such a moratorium by the village council is a violation of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Land Code of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine “On Local Self-Government in Ukraine” #280/97-BP of 21 May 1997, and thus deprives citizens of the constitutional right to receive land in ownership. CHAPTER 2 Monitoring the observance of citizens’ right to acquire land ownership revealed numerous violations of the constitutional rights of Ukrainian citizens to land. In 2019, the Commissioner received 622 reports of violations in the field of land rights, of which 50% concerned violations of the right to land by local selfgovernment bodies, 35%, by other citizens and legal entities, and 15%, by the State Geocadastre and its territorial departments.